"Gettysburg: The Face of Battle" A Distance Learning Program from Gettysburg National Military Park Broadcast Live on May 9, 2001

THE 69th PENNSYLVANIA INFANTRY

The 69th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment numbered approximately 260 officers and enlisted men on July 3, 1863, the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Nearly two years earlier, in August 1861, the 69th was organized in the city of Philadelphia and mustered just over 1,000 officers and men. The roster was thick with Irish names for the men of this regiment came principally from the Irish community of Philadelphia. For the most part they were "hard sons of toil; men who earned their bread by the sweat of their brows." They filled the lowest wage jobs in the city. Many had immigrated from harsh conditions in Ireland in the 1850's seeking a better life in America. They did not find a warm welcome, for the Irish were intensely disliked. When the 69th Pennsylvania marched out of the city that summer of 1861 bound for the front, bricks and stones were thrown at them by other Philadelphians who were glad to be rid of these Irishmen.

Why, one might ask, did these Irishmen volunteer to fight? For some, the army offered a steady paycheck. Privates earned $13 a month, about what a common laborer could earn, but if that private were killed or disabled in the army, his family could expect to receive a small pension. The family of a laborer who was killed or disabled could expect nothing. Others enlisted for patriotic reasons. They saw America as a land of opportunity and freedom, that they had been denied in the native country. One Irish soldier stated that "The Republic [the United States of America], that gave us asylum and an honorable career, - that is the mainstay of human freedom, the world over, - is threatened with disruption. It is the duty of every liberty-loving citizen to prevent such a calamity at all hazards." Others hoped that the military training they received in the United States might be put to use later to fight to gain Ireland's freedom from England.

After arriving in Washington, D. C., where the Army of the Potomac, the main field army for the Union in the east, was being formed, the 69th was assigned to a brigade [four regiments] that would eventually earn the nickname the "Philadelphia Brigade", because all four regiments were from that city. In the army the Irish were valued for the manpower they provided, but many fellow American soldiers greeted them with contempt. One soldier in the 69th recalled that in their early days with the army they were frequently on the receiving end of "hisses, derisive cries and shouts of contempt," from non-Irish soldiers. But the battlefield is the great leveler of social, racial and ethnic distinction and discrimination. All are equal in front of a bullet or shell fragment.

The 69th, and many other Irish regiments, proved themselves on the battlefield, winning grudging admiration and respect from their fellow non-Irish soldiers. During the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia, from March through early July 1862, the 69th Pennsylvania experienced their first taste of combat and suffered their first killed and wounded. But, the fighting on the Peninsula paled in comparison to the regiment's experience in the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862. There, in a matter of minutes, the regiment lost 21 men killed, 57 wounded, and 10 prisoners. The Battle of Fredericksburg followed, on December 13, 1862, where the 69th suffered 19 killed, 32 wounded, and 2 prisoners. They saw more service in the Chancellorsville Campaign in early May 1863, but were spared the hard fighting at the Battle of Chancellorsville.

By mid-June 1863, the 69th Pennsylvania, along with the rest of the Army of the Potomac, left their camps in northern Virginia near Fredericksburg, and began to rapidly march northward. Rumors spread through the ranks that the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, under Robert E. Lee, was marching toward Pennsylvania and that the Army of the Potomac was marching to catch up with him.

The rumors were true and on July 1, 1863 near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the two armies made contact and what became the Battle of Gettysburg began. Hard marching brought the 69th Pennsylvania to the battlefield early on the morning of July 2. There were 284 officers and men in the 69th. Once they had been 1,000, but battle casualties, disease, desertion, men detailed for other duty, all had whittled away at the strength of the regiment.

The regiment was placed on the forward slope of a gentle ridge, behind a stone wall and near a brushy clump of small trees. On the evening of July 2, a strong Confederate attack struck hard to the left of the 69th. In the struggle to repel the Confederates the regiment lost 6 killed and 12 wounded. Bad as this was, this experience paled in comparison to the storm the 69th would be subjected to on July 3. Then, they would be in the very vortex of the some of bloodiest fighting at Gettysburg.

CLOSE-UP CORNER: What do you think is the main reason the soldiers of the 69th Pennsylvania Infantry would have for leaving their homes to fight in a war? Were soldiers with Irish backgrounds different from other soldiers in the army?

Meet some of the soldiers who served in the 69th Pennsylvania Infantry

| Overview |
| Causes & Questions | Battle of Gettysburg | Army Structure |
| Pickett's Charge Vocabulary | 57th Virginia Infantry | 69th Pennsylvania Infantry |
| Post-Broadcast Activities | Evaluation Form | Reading List | Teacher's Guide |

GETTYSBURG: THE FACE OF BATTLE
A Satellite Broadcast- May 9, 2001

Gettysburg National Military Park
97 Taneytown Road
Gettysburg, PA 17325